The
Chicago Card Plus: early explanations and evaluations

A
service of the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference Transit and Parking
Committee and the HPKCC website, www.hydepark.org
Help support our work: Join
the Conference!Join
the Transit Task Force-contact chairman James
Withrow.

If you expect
to ride free as a senior or military, you have to get a universal card from
RTA or CTA.
Free seniors univeral Card can bed obtained at RTA Customer Service, 165 N.
Jefferson, 60661, 312 913-3211- (includes info on other locations to get). CTA
567 W. Lake or 1-888 YOUR CTA (TTY 1-888 CTA-TTY1), http://www.transitchicago.com.
City Hall west end-north through senior services dept. Expect a modest fee,
present 2 forms of ID, have photo taken. Takes up to 5 weeks to be mailed to
you. Metra call 312 322-6777, Pace 847-364-PACE.

All better get
one of the two cards as cash/magnetic card fares went up a quarter--with no
transfers! The cards cost $5 but
waived September, October 2007. The 10% bonus for adding
value will then also apply to $20 and up rather than $10 and up, but the cards
may become free Dec. 1 into January. None of the add-money stations are currently
planned for Hyde Park, as for now they are to be near where the cards can be
purchased. They are often "out" at the Jewels and Dominicks and few
currency exchanges they are announced for.The CTA has relented- the old 4 year
old cards expiring will not result in loss of remaining fare.

But is it a savings
any more? Deja vu, vu. January 2009 will see an increase of a quarter both ways,
elimination of discount on the Cards, and increase in monthly passes from $75
to $90. CTA blames slumping economy (ridership plus falling sales tax take and
real estate transfer tax), increased fuel and utility prices, and more free
rides. You still will save a quarter on bus rides.

The class action
suit on lack of availability of the new transit cards in early 2006 has been
settled without prejudice. Riders with claims must bring documentation of extra
money spent and efforts to buy the cards to Edelman, Combs, Latturner &
Goodwin LLC 120 S. LaSalle St. Suite #1800, Chicago, IL 60603. For more info
visit transitchicago.com.

The2006 hit was a quarter increase in fares to $2
for those paying cash (not cards etc.) and end of transfers for
those who pay cash. Note that the changes will apply to all magnetic
stripe fares on the trains (some sources say all train rides will be
$2, others that it will not apply for holders of the Chicago Card and Chicago
Card Plus and passes. There is a window of waiver of fee Dec. 1- May 2006 for
buyers of the Chicago and Chicago-Plus cards, although the minimum that must
be added per transaction to get the 10% bonus is expected to increase from $10
to $20. And more card machines, such as in stores is under consideration. A
couple other wrinkles are that transit for the disabled jumps from $1.75 to
$3 (rec. to be cut from 3.50, to keep in line with PACE) despite the cost and
responsibility now being placed on PACE and RTA (a 27m paratransit fund), and
the downtown Rush hour shuttle goes from $1 to $2.

Also
passed was a $4 pilot program to introduce 61 fare (card) machines in neighborhood
Currency exchanges, with option to expand. Once you have a card, you can touch
it to a scanner, pay, see verification, and touch the card to the scanner to
authorize the transaction.

March 18, 2005
the General Assembly put universal fare card on hold on being given an implementation
cost of $60 million.

By
2010 a system may be in effect on CTA where your credit cards will have a chip
allowing them to be read and automatically be debited by CTA readers instantaneously-
just tap the reader at turnstyle or on bus.

CTA will enter into deals
with credit card companies and will be able to reduce use of its own cards,
which is very expensive and time consuming for them under the present vendor.
This has been very successful in Europe and Asia and is part of the move to
one or just a few cards vs having a card for every store etc. Deals will probably
emerge as with cards and banks-- sign up with us and get week of free transit
or an ongoing discount, or..... CTA will put the system out for bid in early
2009. A question is what that will do to hopes for intermodality/universal
cards, as for a Metra Electric South Chicago "Gold Line" (already
is with PACE), since Metra is not moving in either direction, at least at
present.

The Chicago Card Plus
arrives

A second "Chicago
Card" has been added to the first. And they're both free until April 1st,
after which they will each cost $5.)Warning--cards expire
without warning! For now, the Plus works in different ways from the
first Chicago Card, increasing options. But this new one could become the basis
of a full universal card in the future.

(A cheap-and-quick universal pass is being tested with those in employee commute
benefit programs, with CTA-PACE on one side and Metra on the other, seen by
critics as a design for failure but helpful to some, mainly CTA riders who have
to then use Metra to get to work. Several companies say a full universal card
is do-able at reasonable cost. Planners from the three agencies are meeting
to determine "how" best to do it.

The main differences
between Chicago Card and Chicago Card Plus are:

With the Chicago you
can add value at vending machines, with Plus you do it electronically (web-based).

"Our
goal is to try to find the most convenient and cost-effective way so a transit
rider will have one card, or one fare mechanism, on all three service boards
if they decide to use it, And our goal was to find something that could be
implemented fairly quickly in the most inexpensive way."David
Lovejoy, RTA

Red Streak, January
16, 2004. By Robert C. Herguth

As the CTA unveiled
its latest electronic fare card, officials hinted it might evolve into a long-discussed
"universal fare card" that can be used by
CTA, Pace and Metra riders.

When it's made
available starting Monday, the Chicago Card Plus will allow holders to prepay
fares, then use th card to board L trains and CTA and Pace buses. Rates are
electronically deducted when a card is tapped against farebox or turnstile keypad.

That's similar
to an earlier model--called the Chicago Card which still is available--but users
of the new card can use credit cards to automatically replenish accounts if
they dip to a certain level, and access trip histories and account transactions
on the Internet.

It can be used
as a 3o-day pass, or a "pay-per-use" pass. It's Web-based, so users
cannot add "value" at CTA vending machines as with a Chicago Card.

For now, discount
fares cannot be applied to the new cards, CTA officials said. Both Chicago Cards
will be free until April 1, [2004] when a $5 fee will be charged.

In the longer
term, transit officials might allow the new card, made of plastic and containing
a tiny computer chip, to be used to buy individual Metra tickets--"like
a debit card," said the RTA's David Lovejoy.

And monthly Metra
ticket holders, instead of getting a separate pass, would be given stickers
to affix to the card, he said.

"Our goal
is to try to find the most convenient and cost-effective way so a transit rider
will have one card, or one fare mechanism, on all three service boards if they
decide to use it," he said. And our goal was to find something that could
be implemented fairly quickly in the most inexpensive way."

Critics have blasted
the RTA, which oversees the other three agencies, for not doing enough to coordinate
services and fares. Last month, it floated a plan to effectively slap together
a monthly Metra pass and a 30-day CTA/Pace pass, a plan not widely embraced.

The new plans
seemed well-received by one of the chief critics, state Rep. Julie Hamos of
Evanston, who introduced legislation pushing the universal fare card concept.

"This is
a great step for CTA and Pace to be taking, and we're so excited to find out
how this works and to see if it's viable and can be rolled out system wide,"
a Hamos spokesman said.

More
about the first Chicago Card (smart card), still the better choice for many,
and differences in the Plus

With
a touch, swipe, or pass, the card will automatically record your trip and deduct
the correct stored amount. You can add money (up to a maximum) without an expiration
date. Use of the card should speed boarding and transfer, including at crowded
train stations. For a full description and application form visit Smart
Card. Or contact Chicago
Transit Authority. The Transit Task Force--and several commuters
we know--wish this card could also get you on Metra, as it already does on Pace-the
capability is built in and there is scanner technology. Note, you can add value
with cash in the vending machines and apply discount rates to these cards, but
not to the newer Chicago Card Plus.

The
HPKCC Transit Task Force thinks the Chicago Card is a good start for a universal
fare card.... In fact, CTA experts tell us the Card was specifically
designed with feasibilities that could easily make it a platform for a universal
card, including ability to be read with a palm pilot. Chicago Card Plus has
these same capabilities and is also web-based.

The CTA...delayed
plans to eliminate a 10 percent bonus tacked onto transit card purchases of
at least $10 until a new form of the agency's Chicago Card "smart card"
is available in early 2004. The cards have several advantages, including speeding
up passenger boarding times on buses.

In addition, the
$5 cost of the Chicago Card, and the soon-to-debut Chicago Card Plus, will be
waived for riders who purchase and register the cards by March 31, 2004. The
waiver is projected to cost the CTA $200,000.

Riders who currently
have a Chicago Card will not be given a $5 refund, but they will be able to
upgrade to the Chicago Card Plus at no additional cost, said CTA spokeswoman
Sheila Gregory.

The Chicago Card
is a stored-value card used to pay CTA fares. The card is replenished by adding
money to the card at a CTA transit-card vending machine located mostly at rail
stations.

The Chicago Card
Plus will be an account-based system in which card-holders provide the?CTA with
credit card information to automatically add money when their Chicago Card Plus
accounts reach a specified minimum level. Value cannot be added to Chicago Card
Plus cards at CTA transit-card vending machines.

Commuters who
use the CTA/RTA transit-benefit program, which sets aside a specified amount
of pre-tax income for transit use, will be able to shift their transit-benefit
accounts to the Chicago Card Plus. A date for the change wasn't immediately
set.